A global speech user interface (GSUI) comprises an input system to receive a user's spoken command, a feedback system along with a set of feedback overlays to give the user information on the progress of his spoken requests, a set of visual cues on the television screen to help the user understand what he can say, a help system, and a model for navigation among applications. The interface is extensible to make it easy to add new applications.

Global speech user interface

A real-time system (100) incorporating speech recognition and linguistic processing for recognizing a spoken query by a user and distributed between client (150) and server (180), is disclosed. The system (100) accepts user's queries in the form of speech at the client (150) where minimal processing extracts a sufficient number of acoustic speech vectors representing the utterance. These vectors are sent via a communications channel (160A) to the server (180) where additional acoustic vectors are derived. Using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), and appropriate grammars and dictionaries conditioned by the selections made by the user, the speech representing the user's query is fully decoded into text (or some other suitable form) at the server (180). The text corresponding to the user's query is then simultaneously sent to a natural language engine (190) and a database processor (186) where optimized SQL statements are constructed for a full-text search from a database (188) for a record set of several stored questions that best matches the user's query. Further processing in the natural language engine (190) narrows the search to a single stored question. The answer corresponding to this single stored question is next retrieved from the file path and sent to the client (150) in compressed form. At the client (150), the answer to the user's query is articulated to the user using a text-to-speech engine (159) in his or her native natural language. The system (100) requires no training and can operate in several natural languages.

Distributed real time speech recognition system

A real-time speech recognition system includes distributed processing across a client and server for recognizing a spoken query by a user. Both the client and server can dedicate a variable number of processing resources for performing speech recognition functions. The partitioning of responsibility for speech recognition operations can be done on a client by client or connection by connection basis.

Adjustable resource based speech recognition system

A speech-enabled WWW based computing system allows a user to interact with content associated with a web page and select items of interest using speech as a mode of input. Dynamic grammars can assist in the recognition operations to improve speed and comprehension.

Internet based speech recognition system with dynamic grammars

An intelligent query system for processing voiced-based queries is disclosed, which uses a combination of both statistical and semantic based processing to identify the question posed by the user by understanding the meaning of the user's utterance. Based on identifying the meaning of the utterance, the system selects a single answer that best matches the user's query. The answer that is paired to this single question is then retrieved and presented to the user. The system, as implemented, accepts environmental variables selected by the user and is scalable to provide answers to a variety and quantity of user-initiated queries.

Speech Based Query System Using Semantic Decoding

With the advances in speech recognition and wireless communications, the possibilities for information access in the automobile have expanded significantly. We describe four system prototypes for (i) voice-dialing, (ii) Internet information retrieval-called InfoPhone, (iii) voice e-mail, and (iv) car navigation. These systems are designed primarily for hands-busy, eyes-busy conditions, use speaker-independent speech recognizers, and can be used with a restricted display or no display at all. The voice-dialing prototype incorporates our hands-free speech recognition engine that is very robust in noisy car environments (1% WER and 3% string error rate on the continuous digit recognition task at 0 db SNR). The InfoPhone, voice e-mail, and car navigation prototypes use a client-server architecture with the client designed to be resident on a phone or other hand-held device.

Yifan Gong

Papers

Speech-enabled information retrieval in the automobile environment